1. How did the Industrial Revolution progress during the nineteenth century? What were its effects? What gains and losses did it create?
2. Under what circumstances did extreme nationalism grow in Europe? What were the aims of such nationalists? What did they view as the appropriate tools for realizing those aims? What did they see as obstacles?
3. Who was Charles Darwin, and what theories did he advance? How did the Social Darwinists transform his theories, and what were the consequences of that transformation?
4. What intellectual trends during this period undermined traditional Christian belief? Who were the leading figures in those trends, and what ideas did they advance?
5. What were the basic principles of Marx's thought: what drives historical change; how did capitalist society emerge; how does it function and perpetuate itself; how will it fall; and what sort of society will take its place? In what intellectual tradition did Marx participate? Who was typically attracted to Marxism and why?
6. How did liberalism develop during the later nineteenth century? What principles did it come to embrace? What did John Stuart Mill and the early feminist leaders contribute to this development?
7. What are the basic aesthetic characteristics of Realism and Naturalism? How do these differ from those of Romanticism?
8. Who were the leading French Realist and Naturalist writers? What were their major works, and how do those exemplify Realism or Naturalism?
9. Who were the foremost Victorian novelists? What are their most notable works, and what thematic concerns do these explore? How do their works exemplify Realism?
10. Who were the major Russian Realists? What thematic issues did they take up, and how does their treatment of them exemplify Realism?
11. How did Ibsen bring Realism to drama? What were his major "problem plays," and what themes do they examine?
12. How did American literature develop during the second half of the nineteenth century? Who were the leading Realist novelists; what were their major works, and what concerns did they articulate? How did Whitman and Dickinson define a distinctly American voice in poetry?
13. How did the tradition of literature as social commentary evolve from the nineteenth into the twentieth century?